One of the truisms I grew up hearing is that “revolutions always eat their own.” I have understood this to mean that, in any revolutionary movement, the second generation, having been marinated longer in the revolutionary brine, is more extreme than the first generation and invariably purges that first generation. Both the French and the Russian revolutions prove this point.

We in America have had a revolution too. It’s been a very slow-moving revolution of the kind that the British used to call a Fabian Revolution. It involves advancing revolutionary goals, not through violence, but through slow, reformist means. As Ferguson shows, the violence then comes after the revolution. Indeed, Ferguson is one of the best manifestations of that revolution.

The other obvious manifestation is the American college campus. On campuses throughout America, a Nanny state fascism is the norm. That didn’t happen overnight. It happened through Fabian gradualism, with hard-Left revolutionary principles being slowly introduced in the classrooms (increasingly open, aggressive Marxist teaching), in the administrative buildings (read Heather MacDonald’s Multiculti U for the best discussion about the hard Left Fabianism in college administration), and in the dorms (which had a slow Progression away from same-sex dorms, same-sex floors, same-sex bathrooms, and same-sex rooms, which a completely unsurprisingly commensurate uptick in rape claims).

One of the biggest slow-mo revolutions in academia was the whole concept of trigger warnings. When the idea got started, nobody said that trigger warnings were going to be censorship. Instead, they were sold as good manners and sensitivity. It’s kind and polite to warn people who might have delicate sensibilities that you’re going to talk about something shocking, such as mass murder, or blood, or something else most people agree is disgusting or revolting. It turned out, though, that at the average college campus an amazing number of kids have heightened sensibilities. More interestingly, it also happened that, thanks to the Leftism in which America’s young have been pickled since preschool, the things that they just can’t bear to hear without horrific mental suffering are facts and ideas that run counter to their Leftist ideology.

One of the biggest slow-mo revolutions in academia was the whole concept of trigger warnings. When the idea got started, nobody said that trigger warnings were going to be censorship. Instead, they were sold as good manners and sensitivity. It’s kind and polite to warn people who might have delicate sensibilities that you’re going to talk about something shocking, such as mass murder, or blood, or something else most people agree is disgusting or revolting. It turned out, though, that at the average college campus an amazing number of kids have heightened sensibilities. More interestingly, it also happened that, thanks to the Leftism in which America’s young have been pickled since preschool, the things that they just can’t bear to hear without horrific mental suffering are facts and ideas that run counter to their Leftist ideology.

Over the last few months, however, something interesting has happened: The Fabian revolution’s Founders are getting disgusted with their progeny’s extremism. It began when Jonathan Chait questioned the stifling effects of the new orthodoxy. In his article challenging the orthodoxy, he still oozed contempt for conservatives having a say in things, but he was definitely perturbed by modern young people’s inability to tolerate any opposing opinions, ideas, or facts. I wonder if Chait was surprised by the subsequent Leftist demand that he be silenced.

I certainly appreciate the effort these old revolutionaries are making to stem the flood waters they first let loose. I doubt they’ll be successful, though. I see them as this revolution’s Robespierres. He, of course, ended up on the same guillotine to which he had so mercilessly consigned others.

Apparently Israel’s election isn’t the only one this president is trying to subvert. Read about his deliberate schemes to do his best to oust another friend of the West in Nigeria and replace him with a Muslim with ties to Islamists, including Boko Haram.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Ask Marion was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the normal 2/3 penalty for not voting:

Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes – Gates Of Vienna – The Club Of Hate submitted by The Noisy Room

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6 PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness? – Adolf Hitler

I studied the Qu’ran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself. – Alexis de Tocqueville

All this talk of people who burn the Koran and nothing about the people who reacted in such a stupid way. We are always blaming the victim and not holding them — not most Muslims, but at least a large part of Muslim culture that doesn’t condemn their people… There is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them and they say ‘look, we are a religion of peace and if you disagree we’ll f**king cut your head off, and nobody calls them on it — there are very few people that will call them on it. It’s like if Dad is a violent drunk and beats his kids, you don’t blame the kid because he set Dad off. You blame Dad because he’s a violent drunk. – Bill Maher

This week’s winning essay, Joshuapundit’sThe Chicken Or The Egg?, looks at some elements of Islamic culture and asks: is it Islam that promotes the extreme violence and misogyny associated with Muslim societies? Or is that just part of a tribal society that persists in spite of Islam? Here’s a slice:

Unless you’re in a coma, you’ve probably noticed that a great many of the violent and barbaric acts in our modern world can be attributed to followers of Islam.

In the Islamic world today, aside from homicide bombings, jihad and terrorism directed against dar harb ( the part of the world not ruled by Islam), honor killings, female genital circumcision and other forms of violence against women are commonplace, and homosexuals are routinely brutalized and murdered. Non-Muslims are treated as barely human in much of the Islamic world, if they’re allowed to exist at all. Warfare carried out by Muslims is done with modern tools of the trade provided by the despised infidels, but is a relic of the good ol’ primitive and tribal days. Hostages, beheadings and the deliberate killing of civilians are all fair game, and the language of jihad is essentially the same heady stuff used back in the 7th century against the infidel. And through it all, there remains the miasma of seething violent rage at things like the Danish cartoons that simply doesn’t exist in other religious groups.

The question nobody wants to ask keeps floating to the surface: Is Islam to blame? Or, to put it another way, are the perpetrators simply bad Muslims or are they actually good ones who are simply more in tune with Mohammed’s message than the majority? Does Islam itself promote violence? Or are the acts simply a product of primitive tribal society that persists in spite of Islam?

Actually, this is a trick question. I personally believe that Islam and the primitive tribal culture combined back in the day to sustain each other and can’t be separated by their very nature…even though some valiant attempts have been made in the past, and are being made today.

Let’s look at honor killings, for example. Probably the oldest recorded one is in Genesis 34, when Jacob’s daughter Dinah was seduced (or raped, depending on how you interpret the text) by a man from the town of Shechem( modern day Nablus). Afterwards, Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi instigated the killing of the town’s men in revenge. But the Torah also tells us how Jacob denounced the killings and actually took the time to bad mouth his sons for the deed from his deathbed. Not only that, but you’ll notice a profound difference from the Islamic way of handling this – the onus of punishment fell on the male, not the female.

his isn’t the only honor killing mentioned in the Bible, but they were never condoned or part of Jewish law, just merely reported.

Islam, on the other hand, not only sanctions honor killings but is quite clear about its position in the matter. Killing or flogging an adulteress or a female that has relations with a non-Muslim male are part of sharia ( Qu’ran: 4:15, for example) – provided an Islamic court orders the punishment rather than an individual male family member going off on his own.

Even at that, Islamic courts today in the Muslim world frequently view male family members taking the law into their own hands fairly leniently. In Jordan, for example, many brutal honor killings have been punished by as little as a three month sentence under Jordanian Public Law 340. Moreover, in the context of Islamic society such murderers are often celebrated and held up as role models. Just as homicide bombers and terrorists who kill infidel civilians often are.

But what if a Muslim feels himself disrespected and lives in say, Britain or New Jersey? If no Islamic courts are available, is it permissible to take the law into one’s own hands? Probably. There’s not much in the way of Islamic rulings or commentary on that particular subject, but the near silence of most Muslim clergy in the West when it comes to denouncing honor killings speaks volumes…one of those little inconvenient truths Western apologists for multiculturalism and Islam constantly run up against when a number of Muslim clerics themselves insist that honor killing, female genital mutilation, and stoning of adulterers are mandated by Islam. And, as you’ve probably guessed by now , that’s one of the unspoken reasons behind the push among many Muslims in the West for sharia courts to handle those messy domestic problems that come up with uppity females from time to time.

Violent death penalties for women caught in adultery is fairly typical of a primitive society, but only Islam continues the practice into the present day. No Christian court has ever condemned a woman to death for adultery. And although the death penalty for adultery is found in the Book of Leviticus, there is no record of such a sentence ever carried out by any Jewish court. The same is true of homosexuality; while both Christianity and Judaism consider it ‘a sin and an abomination’ only Islam clearly mandates the death penalty for such activities and carries it out in our present day.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Daniel Greenfield’s – Obama’s Treason Is The New Patriotism, submitted by The Noisy Room. Daniel has some very hard hitting things to say about President Obama and a number of his questionable actions… and the tendency by the usual suspects to name anyone whom disagrees with the Regime a ‘traitor.’

Here are this week’s full results. GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD and Rhymes With Right were unable to vote this week, but were not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

This week, the Watcher’s Council is proud to welcome a new member, Don Surber. I’ve admired his work for quite some time and we’re all glad to have him aboard. Please check out his fine site, and feast your eyes and brain matter on his Council debut below.

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

One of the critical issues that we have to confront is illegal immigration, because this is a multi-headed Hydra that affects our economy, our health care, our education systems, our national security and also our local criminality. – Allen West

Illegal immigrants are to immigration what shoplifters are to shopping. – Jerry Agar

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people. – President Theodore Roosevelt

A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation. – President Ronald Reagan

This week’s winning essay, The Right Planet’s – A Strong Warning from Trevor Loudon on Illegal Amnesty, is an in-depth look at amnesty for illegal aliens, the radical roots of many of its activists and how it is being used as a tool to subvert the basic fabric of the country. Here’s a slice:

For the past three years, Trevor Loudon, author of the book “Barack Obama and the Enemies Within,” has been trying to warn Americans about the Marxist takeover of the Democratic Party. If you listen to the video above, you can hear Trevor is losing his voice from all the rallies he’s been attending lately. He is trying, with every fiber in his being, to warn Americans of the dire consequences of ignoring the ominous slide toward pure socialism occurring now in the American body politic.

A little while back I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down and talking to Trevor Loudon at length when he visited Indianapolis. Many of the points he is making in his presentation to the Leadership Institute were the same ones he made during his visit to Indy.

I want to focus on some key points regarding illegal immigration Trevor made in his presentation.

The radical leftists took over every major labor union in the country, and purged the Democratic Party of all the moderates, dixiecrats, centrists and bluedog democrats—with Sen. Joe Lieberman being the last to go.

Today, there is not a single policy embraced by the Democratic Party that can be distinguished from the platform of the Communist Party USA or the Democratic Socialists of America. This is full-on Marxism-Leninism, ladies and gentlemen. I have been warning about this for years—Trevor, even longer. Now we have a situation where some twenty-thousand Marxists own the unions, and the unions own the Democratic Party. It was Vladimir Lenin who once wrote that the labor unions are “the transmission belts from the Communist Party to the masses.”

Trevor mentioned some key individuals worth noting in his presentation that have been major driving forces behind the “immigration reform” movement (i.e. amnesty) in the United States.

The first organized effort to bring Latinos into the Democratic Party started with hardcore communist Bert Corona in the 1950’s. It was Corona who set up the Viva Kennedy clubs that, for the first time, brought large numbers of Mexican-Americans into a Presidential campaign.

The former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa—a hardcore Marxist, who cut sugar cane in Cuba for the Castro brothers—turned L.A. into a sanctuary city, and forbade the LAPD from enforcing immigration. The illegals flooded into California by the hundreds of thousands.

Communist Party supporter, and former head of the California senate, Gil Cedillo, pushed through the DREAM Act in California about three years ago, giving so-called “rights” to the children of illegal immigrants—euphemistically called “undocumented workers.”

In our non-Council category, the winner was Mark Steyn with The Enemy Of My Enemy submitted by The Noisy Room. This is Steyn’s take on Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress… and as usual with Steyn, he gets to the heart of the matter with his customary wit and brilliance. Do read it.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Rhymes With Right was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Trevor Loudon spoke today to a sold-out room of Marin County conservatives anxious to hear the truth about the Democrat party and to get a prescription for the path to victory in 2016. Trevor, a dynamic speaker from New Zealand, loves America both because of gratitude and hope. He’s grateful to America because it was American sailors and Marines who fought so valiantly against the Japanese at Midway, Guadalcanal, and so many other battles in the Pacific, saving New Zealand from being conquered by Japan.

Trevor also believes that, as Reagan said, America is “the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation.” With America gone, the world’s dictators, from oligarchs, to communists, to Islamists, will divvy the world up amongst them, leading to a thousand years of darkness for people who once unthinkingly and rather ungratefully enjoyed the benefits of an enlightened world.

Looking at the inroads these tyrants have made under the Obama administration, only a fool would believe that Trevor is exaggerating. Indeed, Trevor reminded us that, from practically his first day in office, Obama has relentlessly abandoned America’s allies to make way for her enemies. As you may recall, Obama immediately began to withdraw the missile defense systems that protected our middle European allies from Russian aggression on the Eastern fronts. Not surprisingly, giving Obama’s tacit permission, Russia has now been aggressive.

Likewise, even though Ukraine gave up its missile defense in exchange for an explicit American promises of meaningful aid should the Russians cause trouble, Obama has contributed nothing meaningful to Ukraine’s defense in the face of Russian depredations. Indeed, the only thing we’ve given it is John Kerry, whom Trevor likened to Jane Fonda, only with less testosterone. Trevor noted that Obama’s accelerating active and passive abnegation of America’s long-time role as protector of smaller democratic (or democratically-inclined) nations could be seen predictable outcomes of Obama’s secret promise to Russia, made known only through a hot mic that, after the election, he’d have more “flexibility.”

It’s not just Eastern Europe that Obama has abandoned. He also turned his back on Egypt and other Arab nations tearing themselves away from theocracy and struggling towards democracy. Don’t forget that Obama was the Muslim Brotherhood’s staunchest ally. And we won’t even start talking about his frantic, angry efforts to isolate and abandon Israel, while handing Iran the keys to the nuclear kingdom.

Obama has waged a war on the US at home too. He’s in the process of gutting our military, he’s working to destroy our southern border, he’s kept us in the longest, weakest economy since the Great Depression, he’s strengthened Cuba’s dictatorship, and his justice system is systematically creating race and class warfare while destroying American’s constitutional protections. With regard to the military, Trevor asked rhetorically if any of us thought that Russia would have invaded Ukraine or if the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS would have been ascendant if Reagan had been president.

Looking at Obama’s conduct, Trevor said that people who claim Obama is stupid are wrong. After all, he said, if Obama were just stupid, wouldn’t he sometimes make mistakes in America’s favor? The reality is that, if Obama were a fully paid Russian agent, he would be doing exactly the same things he’s doing today.

I agree with Trevor. I’ve concluded that Obama, while uneducated, is extremely intelligent and adept at manipulating the American political system, with a lot of help from media ideologues. (Which raises the question of what you call a nation under the tyranny of the press. A mediagarchy? When the history books are written, assuming America has a history after Obama, our president will be rightly identified as one of America’s most consequential presidents. The problem for those of us who love a constitutional America is that Obama’s very real successes are all aimed at turning America into another Venezuela, complete with a broken marketplace, despite vast natural and human resources, ruled over by a corrupt cabal of party insiders and crony capitalists. And now back to Trevor….

You know what’s really funny? Trevor knows communists because they leave a huge bread crumb trail. Old communists, wanting to preserve their legacies, turn their photos and documents over to university libraries in Berkeley, and Ann Arbor, and Madison, and all sorts of other Leftist bastions. It is, says Trevor, kind of like the Mafia leaving its records to the local library.

Trevor has visited these library collections and found hundreds of contemporaneous records: essays, photographs, correspondence, membership cards in various communist entities, political platforms, five- and ten-year plans . . . everything, all of which Trevor has photocopied. He joked that, despite their donating their stuff to libraries, it seems that the old commies are so arrogant they think that no one will ever actually use the information against them.

Trevor’s research has brought him to two primary conclusions:

Like the Devil, the communists’ greatest feat is convincing people that they don’t exist.

It takes only a very, very small cadre of Marxists to influence and ultimately control legislators. As a result, they write the laws and administrative codes that dictate our country’s and our people’s future.

The communists’ big moment came in 1995 when no one was looking. That was the year that the Democratic Socialists of America, a communist group, put one of their own — John Sweeney — in as head of the AFL-CIO. Overnight, the AFL-CIO, an organization that was once ferociously anti-communist and that opposed amnesty because it would hurt working Americans, turned into a pro-communist, pro-amnesty group.

More than that, through the AFL-CIO, communists suddenly owned Congress. After all, unions (headed by the SEIU, which outspends the next two donor organizations which are also Leftist) are the largest contributors to Democrat politicians. These politicians, in exchange for money and political “guidance” turn around and shovel funds directly to government unions and indirectly to private-sector unions. The unions then reward the politicians whom they own, and so it goes. The spigot of taxpayer money flows directly to the groups that are working to destroy our constitutional system. The only people who aren’t at the table for these negotiations are the taxpayers whose money ultimately funds the unions’ hard-Left game plan.

Over the past 20 years, the unions’ biggest push has been for amnesty, something that, as I noted, the old unions viewed with revulsion as a job destroyer. The new guard, however, understands that amnesty is the pathway to a permanent Democrat majority. Keep in mind the fact that Mitt lost the presidency by only 2.5 million votes, while amnesty promises 8 million or more permanent Democrat votes. (And yes, while Hispanic family values ought to make them side with conservatives, the fact is that they overwhelmingly vote for the same Democrats that slice and dice them by race and create financial incentives that keep them locked in the ghetto.)

Sadly, when it comes to amnesty, the communists and Democrats don’t act alone. They get way too much help from the Chamber of Commerce, which owns Boehner and Co. Thus, in a marvel of shortsightedness, the Chamber of Commerce types see these new immigrants as a source of cheap labor that maximizes profits, without understanding that they’re also the socialist wedge that will destroy capitalism. As Lenin presciently said, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Lest you think that Trevor is connecting imaginary dots with invisible lines, remember the treasure troves in the library. he’s got first person data to support every one of his allegations.

Thanks to his research, Trevor can name the five most powerful forces in the amnesty movement. The godfather of the movement was the late Humberto Noé “Bert” Corona, a Stalinist and Democrat who started the amnesty movement in Los Angeles in the 1950s. He was also the one who brought the wealth and moral suasion of the Catholic Church — which was already being moved Left by the Liberation theology movement — to back amnesty. Corona’s goal wasn’t to save souls, though. He wanted to and did grow a permanent Democrat voting base in California.

The next important person in the amnesty movement was Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and the one who turned L.A. into a sanctuary city that no longer worked to deport illegal aliens (which was still something of a novel idea as little as a decade ago). Approximately 1/10 of all Los Angeles residents are now illegal aliens and beneficiaries of amnesty. (I’ve also been told by a reliable source that, thanks to this influx, a significant number of American-born L.A. Unified School District teachers test positive for TB, although they’re not actively ill.)

The third person behind amnesty is Gilbert Anthony Cedillo, the major player in California’s Democrat Senate. It was Cedillo who got the DREAM Act passed in California. It put California taxpayers on the hook for funding college education for illegal aliens, all while squeezing students in America legally out of the education system.

California also boasts the fourth amnesty powerhouse, Marie Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary and Treasurer of the Los Angeles County AFL-CIO. She is the person behind “get out the vote” efforts for Latinos — legal or illegal.

These four people have made sure that California, which brings the largest number of electoral votes to the table in presidential elections, will be solid blue for the indefinite future. Looking outside of California, SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina is on Obama’s Latino Advisory Committee and was the most aggressive proponent of amnesty (not that Obama was hard to convince). Medina is one of those working to get Hispanics the vote in Texas.

If Texas goes as blue as California, thanks to all those reliable Democrat votes, Democrats will have a permanent lock on the electoral college and, through that, a lock on the White House. Moreover, that permanent lock will come after Obama has set the precedent for unilateral executive action without regard for Congressional powers.

Incidentally, the union chiefs are open about their goals, although most of the rank and file are ignorant of this. Contrary to what ordinary union members assume, which is that their unions are looking out for them, the union movement, having been taken over by hard-core socialists, has only one goal: a permanent, hard-Left Democrat political majority. Three years ago, Medina was caught on tape telling supporters that the amnesty movement is the top priority of the Progressive movement. Note that the union’s priority isn’t the American worker, who’s getting screwed by amnesty. The union’s priority is permanent Leftist dominant. Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your freedom and the road to prosperity.

Soft-headed Liberals, those who claim to be the heirs of Truman and Kennedy, envision a sort of loving Leftism, kind of like Europe during the heyday of the 1970s. Think again, says Trevor. What we should expect is Venezuela-style socialism.

(Note from me, Bookworm: Europe’s socialism worked for only one reason and it wasn’t that it was such a wonderful deal helped along by morally superior Europeans. It worked because Americans funded it. Not only did we relieve the European nations of having to front a military to defend themselves against the Soviet Union, we sent them a lot of cold, hard cash. They were socialists because we wrote the checks. With the official Cold War over and America out of the picture, you can see in Spain and Greece and Italy and throughout Europe just how well non-American socialism is working.)

This is depressing, really depressing, but Trevor said be of good cheer. We’re at one of those turning points in history where things are worse than most of actually realize but, if we make the right choices, we’re trembling on the brink of making things better than ever — even better than when Reagan was president.

Think back to 2008, he said. Back then, the Left had a slam dunk. The party owned everything in Washington. In theory, it should have gotten every single one of its agenda items. But it didn’t. Even Obamacare was a bizarre crony-capitalist compromise, rather than the full socialized medicine the Left wanted.

What stopped the Left in its tracks was “We, the People.” The Tea Party movement, a true grass-roots movement, was the voice of the people saying “We still want to be free. We don’t want to be cogs in the government’s wheel.” Amateurs and novices all over America spoke out and stopped the fruition of a decades’ long agenda. As Trevor says, “I think the Tea Party saved America.”

So, what next? Trevor says that 2016 is our last chance. If the Democrats take back Congress and keep the White House in 2016, especially with Obama’s executive overreach as precedent, we can expect the quick legalization of every illegal immigrant followed by the destruction of the Bill of Rights. Venezuela here we come. (Incidentally, Trevor says the Left is committing a terrible fraud against Hispanics. It entices them here with the American promise, but it’s actually using their presence to turn America into precisely the same poverty-stricken dictatorships the Hispanics thought they were escaping.)

History, however, offers a useful precedent for conservatives in America. In 1976, the mandarins of the GOP looked at Ronald Reagan, an up-and-coming California politician, and decided he was toxic. Too extreme, they said. We need someone moderate, someone like Gerald Ford (a good man, but a lousy conservative politician). And so it was that Jimmy Carter became president — or, as Trevor said, Carter became the second-worst president in American history.

Reagan, however, didn’t give up, nor did his supporters. Rather than abandoning the GOP, which has a very useful infrastructure, conservatives took it over, just as the Leftists have taken over Truman’s and Kennedy’s Democrat Party. By 1980, the man who was considered so toxic the GOP wouldn’t touch him won 48 states.

What made the difference was that Reagan bypassed the media and, with his incredible oratorical gifts, spoke directly to the American people. Nor did he just pick and choose which conservatives ought to support him. He was truly a Big Tent guy, making all traditionally patriotic, conservative Americans feel welcome in his coalition.

Nowadays, the conservative base is incredibly divided — and you can’t win an election without your base. Currently, the GOP machinery is throwing itself behind Jeb Bush, someone loved only by the Chamber of Commerce, the same group backing Boehner’s amnesty sell-out. While Jeb is almost certainly a good human being, he can’t even spark a fizzle in the base. Conservatives hate his politics.

Trevor envisions a coalition in the coming election. His dream ticket is

Ted Cruz as President, with Allen West as his Vice President.

Rand Paul as Treasury Secretary, with permission to shackle the IRS and free the US economy.

Sarah Palin as Energy Secretary, with a mandate to drill, baby, drill.

Scott Walker as labor secretary, working to de-fang the unions that have become so hostile to the American workers.

Michelle Bachman as Commerce Secretary, tasked with deregulation so that rules exist to police bad behavior, not to drive all market behavior.

Mike Lee as Interior Secretary, charged with giving back to the states all the land the federal government has seized.

John Bolton as Secretary of State, which would be a whole lot of fun.

Ben Carson as be Secretary of Health and Human Services, freeing Americans from the moral horrors of unlimited welfare.

Trey Gowdy as Attorney General, bringing justice back to our electoral process and the Bill of Rights back to our politics.

Thomas Sowell as Secretary of Education, un-ringing the Common Core bell and leaving home schooling families alone.

Oh, and Ambassador to the UN? No one, said Trevor, to laughter and applause.

People raised concerns, of course. I pointed out that we have a primary system that will see many of these same people standing in a circular firing squad against each other, as each tries to grasp the gold ring of the presidency himself (or herself). Trevor acknowledged this, but said that, if one person isn’t polling well, wouldn’t it be a huge thing if someone who is in the lead — say Cruz — went up to him and said, “Give up this quixotic quest. Instead of running for president, join me. I’m going to give you this incredible power to change the thing most important to you.”

Someone else pointed out that Scott Walker has governing experience and is currently riding high amongst conservatives. Trevor agreed that Walker is a great guy and said that, if Walker gets the Republican party nomination, he’ll back him all the way. But this election, said Trevor, isn’t about issues, it’s about INSPIRATION. And Walker, for all his many virtues, doesn’t rouse a room. The only one who does that is Ted Cruz, with Allen West standing right behind him in that regard. (Note from me: Sarah Palin also rouses a room, but I think her day is gone.) You know that I think well of Cruz.

Imagine, Trevor said, a barnstormer like Cruz who has in his wake 15 or 20 rock-solid conservatives, all of whom will willingly serve in his administration, and whom are advocating the same ticket. The media would go crazy because it would destroy their ability to isolate, freeze, and destroy the target. Instead, they’d be aiming pop guns at a battleship.

Most importantly, this ticket would play beautifully to the broad spectrum of the conservative base. Just as their leaders — the libertarians, and Christians, and homeschoolers, and free-marketers — are pulling together, so would the voters. In this regard, said Trevor, keep in mind the fact that in the last election millions of evangelicals, as well as a few million others disgruntled conservatives, stayed home.

Of course, some people are worried about making common cause with others. They needn’t be, because true conservativism says that the government shouldn’t put its thumb on the scales for any one group. For example, those libertarians who are worried about making common cause with evangelicals can relax. The new breed of evangelicals don’t want to change the world; they just want to be left alone to educate their children, without having them forced into Leftist run public schools, and run their own business, without being forced into state-mandated education for the crime of holding onto their traditional moral beliefs.

Importantly, Trevor said to the conservatives in the room, stop trying to convert Leftists. You can’t make enough difference to change the 2016 outcome. Work on your own base. Conservatives have a much larger base than Leftists do but, lately, we have a lousy track record at getting them to the polls.

Trevor made a few other important points that I want to share with you. When someone asked why the Left so desperately wants to destroy America’s wealth and beauty, and drag it towards a Venezuela outcome, he said some are ideologues, but many are all about the power of Leftism. They like being able to control people and feel superior to them. They are, he said, the bullies almost all of us hated back in high school — yet many Americans are willing to cede them power today.

And speaking of power, Trevor said that there’s been an important and dangerous power shift emanating from the Justice Department. He noted that Ferguson is a trial run for the Left, and that we need to prepare for much, much worse every time another black kid gets killed at a white person’s hands — and that’s true no matter the reason for the kids’ death.

America has seen race riots before, of course, but there’s a significant difference now: In the 1960s and 1970s, the government supported law and order. Under Holder, the government supports the radicals and the rioters. Think about that next time you wonder whether it’s even worth bothering to vote in 2016.

Here’s something else that will cheer you up: Trevor is making a movie called “Exposing the Enemy Within.” It will be a hard-hitting, factually-supported movie based upon his book, THE ENEMIES WITHIN: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress. It will come out in Fall 2015, and should be available in Netflix. Trevor’s hope is that it will make people see the abyss in front of them and inspire them to act. Again, there are more conservatives in America than not — they’re just not voting! if you’re interested helping bring that movie to theaters and home videos, you can donate here. (Don’t be dismayed by the small amount of money on display there. Trevor has already started the project with the help of a few big donors.)

When Trevor finished his speech, the room gave him a standing ovation. Our own Charles Martell [sic] was there, and he clapped so hard his armor rattled! It’s time for us all to start clapping now. This election isn’t about the Leftist drone on your Facebook page; it’s about your lovely evangelical next door neighbor who hopes that, if he ignores elections, elections will ignore him. That’s not how it happens. If he really wants to be left alone, he needs to vote for the Republican candidate, or he’ll have the dubious pleasure of becoming yet another martyr to his faith in the Leftist-led culture wars.

ADDENDUM: If you get word that Trevor’s coming to your town, make the time to attend his talk. You won’t regret it. Also, if you’d like to have at your fingertips the same facts on which Trevor relies, check out his KeyWiki (or even make a donation to its upkeep).

As a proud member of this great organization (NRA) it is necessary to always vet any individual seeking to be a member of NRA’s Board, it has come to my attention that Grover Norquist is one of those individuals. Would you not agree that America today is facing repeated attacks by countries and individuals both foreign and domestic who seek to destroy our Constitution, our principles, and our way of life? If the NRA agrees with this premise, it will require the NRA to carefully consider and report any links or associations that may tie Grover Norquist to the Muslim Brotherhood. The term “the enemy within” must always be carefully weighed before considering any one individual that may influence Constitutional law or policies that are crafted to guard the safety of our Country.

Hillary Clinton is one of those people who should have resolved a long time ago never to lie. She’s absolutely awful at it. Aside from violating the Federal Records Act, there’s also the question of National Security. Unless Mrs. Clinton spent a great deal of money encrypting her private server to government standards, her illegal account was an open invitation to foreign governments or even private hackers to gain access to her account and spy on what she insists were ‘mostly private e-mails’ that had nothing to do with government affairs, something I think we all pretty much know is horse manure.

No matter how you slice it, this is a gross violation of federal law, something Hillary Clinton had full knowledge of when she did it.

Me, I still want to know what happened to that $6 billion in State Department funding that mysteriously ‘disappeared’ while she was Secretary of State and about those mysterious donations from foreign countries like Algeria to the Clinton Foundation.

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6 PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

Years ago I did my best to convince my fellow locksmiths that jumping on the licensing bandwagon was a mistake. During a heated discussion while attending a meeting organized by the Associated Locksmiths of America (ALOA) one fellow wanted me to step out back and settle our differences the old fashioned way; maybe that would have been fun in my younger days.

We were told the state had already decided the locksmith industry was going to be licensed and so we had better come up with a plan to submit to the legislature, one that would be favorable toward our needs. That plan was approved by members of the Texas Locksmith Association (TLA) board and passed around so everyone in attendance could get a look at it. Unfortunately that wasn’t the bill which the legislators were handed.

I couldn’t say for sure what happened in the back rooms of Austin; but you can bet the farm that the ALOA and Alarm Service Industry folks had their hand in the deal since these were the same folks who’d insisted the locksmith industry get licensed to begin with. We were placed under the Department of Public Safety held in check by a bureaucracy which is now called the Private Security Bureau (DPS/PSB), a board of appointees which supposedly represents the interests of the entire Security Industry, more particularly, the Alarm Services Industry; well shucky-dern, isn’t that a coincidence.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that time; but there has yet to be one locksmith sitting on the DPS/PSB, something which should tell you locksmiths are not being given any representation when it comes to laying down the rules.

I expect one day a locksmith will eventually sit on the DPS/PSB as promised so many years ago; but then again, consider who that individual might be… You can count on it being a sycophant willing to go along with whatever the powers that be direct, just like the TLA and GHLA board members of the past. No thank you, let’s just step outside and settle this like we should have done so many years ago.

Licensing serves a couple of purposes, neither of which protects the public from unscrupulous vendors. First, licensing limits competition for those who are already covered and secondly it acts as a revenue generator for the State which is more than happy to destroy the free market system (socialism/communism) by enslaving those required to obtain and then maintain a license. All cost increases to a business are then passed along to the consumer who must also pay for a protection racket run by the State which doesn’t provide protection; not much different than protection rackets run by the Mafia.

Fast forward to the present, specifically a message from the president of the Greater Houston Locksmith Association (GHLA) found in the monthly newsletter.

“At the TLA Convention, the legislative update from DPS/PSB was simply about the locksmith laws that those in the industry are already aware of them. As an organization, we need to be prepared to take a different approach when it comes to the lobbyist in Austin, Texas. It takes money to see changes and not be ignored by the P.S.B. A different approach is much needed.” (emphasis added)

After all these years GHLA board members have finally figured out that the DPS/PSB folks have been ignoring them. The DPS/PSB is good at ignoring locksmiths and imposing mandates arbitrarily, mandates which are costly in both time and effort and do absolutely nothing to improve the industry or provide any measure of ‘promised security’ for the public.

Just a couple of weeks ago while attending the TLA convention in Plano, Texas, the one mentioned in the president’s message, I met with a couple of new GHLA board members. My purpose for attending was to represent the Society Of Professional Locksmiths (SOPL) and to encourage those in the TLA and GHLA to become members and support this national locksmith association; one which wasn’t under the thumb of the Alarm Services Industry or the ALOA.

SOPL has on-line training courses which cover a wide variety of locksmith related items and are cost efficient. If these classes were to be approved and shared at meetings held by either the TLA or GHLA for the purpose of obtaining Mandated Credit Hours to maintain an individual’s locksmith license, members would be that much better off.

I introduced myself to one of the new board members who didn’t know me; no surprise since I prefer tending to my business rather than attending local meetings, and explained that he needed to properly represent locksmiths along with some history (some of this was a real eye opener to him), history which can be reviewed by reading articles I’ve written on the subject.

I drove home the point that it was important to stop dancing with the enemy, the enemy being the DPS/PSB, that our going along quietly had done nothing to improve the individual locksmith’s position and that we were in fact 2nd Class citizens that had no voice.

Maybe, just maybe some locksmith’s eyes are starting to open. They are beginning to understand that the State is not our friend and that somebody needs to stand up to them instead of paying a lobbyist to plead mercy at the feet of our Puppet Masters (DPS/PSB).

A complimentary copy of this article will be sent to the Texas Locksmith Association (TLA), the Greater Houston Locksmith Association (GHLA) as well as the Society Of Professional Locksmiths (SOPL).

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.

With thanks to Moonbattery, NoisyRoom would like to add to the Weasel festivities this week:

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. – George Orwell’s 1984

Whoever controls the media, controls the mind. – Jim Morrison of The Doors

The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. – Malcolm X

We keep hearing, from the saviors in Washington, DC, how government regulation is the answer and how “evil monopolies” (created, incidentally, by other government regulations) are responsible for all our trials and tribulations and the “fundamental unfairness” of the Internet as she is currently wrote.

The founder of Broadcast.com, Mark Cuban, has recently been vociferous in his opposition to so-called “Net Neutrality” with his most recent public appearance on the subject in an interview where he breaks it down. His effort to “plain-language” the argument notwithstanding, and frankly, it’s a subject that should not be oversimplified, he laid out the unintended consequences dominoes and how this “everything is equal” push plays out in terms of common services.

Now, you might want to shrug Mark Cuban off as “some rich guy who owns a sports team” and clearly that’s being done a lot, but don’t forget how he got rich: he pioneered live broadcasting over the Internet. He’s not some political hack, evil cable company exec, or mushy thinking me-too “fairness uber alles” flag waver. He is, for once, someone who knows what the hell he’s talking about.

Net Neutrality, like so many political labels, is a “fair sounding” name that hides the actual motives and consequences of the real world implementations we will experience after the seemingly inevitable adoption of this latest government overreach.

It won’t be fair. It won’t be optimum. And the right answer will never even be mentioned, never mind entertained: deregulate the cable and broadband space to eliminate the protected monopolies.

The broadband space needs more competition, not less; needs less regulation, not more. Companies like Google laying fiber? Cox, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast suddenly no longer have a free pass.

Otherwise? The cynical and dystopian view?

One of the unavoidable dominoes will be broad censorship. Once the deprioritization of broadcast packets leads to the epic traffic jam that will reduce the Web’s US speeds to worse than those found in Europe, the government of the day will, once again, have to “save us” from this “unforseen” outcome and their clever plan will include limiting who can “legitimately” have bandwidth preferences, since clearly “legitimate” news outlets need to bypass the buffering jams that will afflict TV signalling and once dot-gov starts adjudicating who’s a “real” news or other “essential” service, licensing will naturally follow, and then “standards” of what is “acceptable” traffic.

At which point, whichever political party is in power at that time will have the distinct advantage of licensing whomever they deem to be more politically correct in their eyes. “Neutrality” on the ‘Net? Yeah, not so much.

We’re in the hands of fools and corrupt bureaucrats. Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission held a faux meeting on open Internet rules and access to broadband Internet. Commissioner Ajit Pai made a statement before the FCC vote to take unprecedented control over the internet with a secret plan. Yes, secret. Secret as in no exposure to the public or Congress prior to its enactment. What follows is the transcript of his comments – in echoes of Obamacare, this had to pass before we could know what was in it. Except, they are still keeping it under wraps. It must be very, very bad indeed.

“The Wall Street Journal reports that it was developed through ‘an unusual secretive effort inside the White House.’ Indeed, White House officials, according to the Journal, functioned as a parallel version of the FCC. Their work led to the president’s announcement in November of his plan for internet regulation, a plan which the report says blindsided the FCC and swept aside months of work by Chairman Wheeler toward a compromise. Now, of course, a few insiders were clued in about what was transpiring. Here’s what a leader for the government-funded group Fight for the Future had to say, ‘We’ve been hearing for weeks from our allies in D.C that the only thing that could stop FCC chairman Tom Wheeler from moving ahead with his sham proposal to gut net neutrality was if we could get the president to step in. So we did everything in our power to make that happen. We took the gloves off and played hard, and now we get to celebrate a sweet victory. Congratulations. what the press has called the parallel FCC at the White House opened its door to a plethora of special interest activists. Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press, and Public Knowledge, just to name a few. Indeed, even before activists were blocking the chairman’s driveway late last year, some of them had met with executive branch officials.

“But what about the rest of the American people? They certainly couldn’t get White House meetings. They were shut out of the process altogether. They were being played for fools. And the situation didn’t improve once the White House announced President Obama’s plan, and ‘asked’ the FCC to implement it. The document in front of us today differs dramatically from the proposal that the FCC put out for comment last May, and it differs so dramatically that even zealous net neutrality advocates frantically rushed in, in recent days, to make last-minute filings, registering their concerns that the FCC might be going too far. Yet, the American people, to this day, have not been allowed to see President Obama’s plan. It has remained hidden.

“Especially given the unique importance of the internet, Commissioner O’Rielly and I ask for the plan to be released to the public. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune and House of Representatives Chairman did the same. According to a survey last week by a respected democratic polling firm, 79% of the American people favored making the document public. Still, the FCC has insisted on keeping it behind closed doors. We have to pass President Obama’s 317-page plan so the American people can find out what’s in it. This isn’t how the FCC should operate. We should be an independent agency making decisions in a transparent manner based on the law and the facts in the record.

“We shouldn’t be a rubber stamp for political decisions made by the White House. And we should have released this plan to the public, solicited their feedback, incorporated that input into the plan, and then proceeded to a vote. There was no need for us to resolve this matter today. There is no immediate crisis in the internet marketplace that demands immediate action. now. The backers of the president’s plan know this. But they also know that the details of this plan cannot stand up to the light of day. They know that the more the American people learn about it, the less they will like it. That is why this plan was developed behind closed doors at the White House. And that is why the plan has remained hidden from public view.

“These aren’t my only concerns. Even a cursory look at the plan reveals glaring legal plans that are sure to mire the agency in the muck of litigation for a long, long time. but rather than address them today, I will reserve them for my written statement. At the beginning of this proceeding, I quoted Google’s former CEO, who once said, the internet is the first thing that humanity has built, that humanity doesn’t understand. This proceeding makes it abundantly clear that the FCC still doesn’t get it. but the American people clearly do. The proposed government regulation of the internet has awakened a sleeping giant. I’m optimistic we’ll look back on today’s vote as a temporary deviation from the bipartisan consensus that’s served us so well. I don’t know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future commission, But I do believe its days are numbered. For all of those reasons, I dissent.”

In our non-Council category, the winner was Jim DeMint in the Daily Signal with If Not Now … When? Will the GOP Majority Ever Stand for Anything? submitted by Ask Marion. As the man who, along with Sarah Palin, was pretty much responsible for the victory in the 2010 midterms that resurrected the GOP from the grave, De Mint is definitely in a position to look at the Republicans in Congress today and wonder if they stand for anything.

After lying to their supporters again in 2014 about ow they would dismantle President Obama’s radical agenda and being rewarded with majorities in both houses of Congress, they’ve reneged on everything they said they would do at election time. Can they ever be trusted again? Do read it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

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